Buddhist psychology is what we call a non-self psychology. According to Buddhist teachings the self is a delusion which we create as a defensive structure to protect ourselves from knowing the realities of life. This Buddhist analysis rests upon an understanding that, as humans, we are bound to experience afflictions (dukkha) of many kinds throughout our lifetimes. These afflictions may be small or large. Our bodies get sick or don't work properly. We get old and die. Our friends leave us or fall out with us. They may die also. Everything is uncertain because nothing is permanent. We can say that we are surrounded by evidence of existential suffering, and that this evidence is unavoidable. We are frightened by it.

Because we are afraid, we seek for ways to avoid knowing what inevitably we do know. In explaining the second of the Four Noble Truths, samudaya, the Buddha taught that initially we attach to sensory pleasures. Our senses grasp at pleasant things in order to avoid grasping other aspects of life. We use our senses to distract ourselves from knowledge of dukkha. We drink too much, eat too much, watch television or make love. In an immediate way, this alleviates the pain we are experiencing. Dukkha, however, returns all too quickly. Having once tried to avoid dukkha through sensory escape, we hold the propensity to use the same sensory pleasure again as a means of escape. Soon we have created a habit. We have found our way of distancing pain. We have also created a habit pattern that persists. This is the process of attachment-formation.

The way that habit patterns become established is outlined in the teaching of the skandhas. This teaching describes a cyclical process whereby reactions (vedana) lay down the mental formations (samskaras) that in turn create a mentality (vijnana) that leads to the likelihood of future repetitions of the same pattern of reaction. This cyclical repetition is the mechanism of delusion. It is the wheel of samsara. The process that is being described here is the creation of not just one habit but of a collection of reactions that together create a fabric of attachments. This fabric becomes established and rigid. We can say it develops a stickiness (alaya), clinging onto us, or we onto it. Rather as the child's security blanket, it seems to have the power to ward off painful feelings and protect us from knowing our human frailty.

This collection of habit patterns, developed through many repetitions of sensory escape patterns, is the foundation of the self. We come to identify with our habitual behaviours and preferences. We identify with our world-view, which is itself a product of our search for perceptual objects (rupas) that confirm our habitual way of being. This is the second route of escape listed in the teaching on samudaya. It is the creation of the self.

The self then creates a psychological barrier between the person and the existential world they inhabit. By creating an illusion of identity, the person creates something that seems permanent and controllable. There is a comfort in the identification with self because it brings with it feelings of inhabiting a knowable universe. Whatever else happens, I know I exist. I think, therefore I am. This self even has a sense of immortality. This feeling may be translated into various belief systems, but whatever conceptual frame it chooses, according to Buddhist teaching, it remains deluded if it feels confident of its own permanence and continuity.

Not all experiences of self are comfortable though. Sometimes the self that is created is negative. A poor self image can be just as much a strong sense of self as a positive self image can, and it may be even more tenaciously held onto. This is because the negative self is basically created in just the same way as the positive sense of self. The negative self is a response to dukkha and often an attempt to create something enduring and controllable out of a situation that is unbearable and frightening. This is why people who have experienced great suffering early in life are often plagued by a negative self image later in life. Giving up this negative self, however, can be a lot more frightening because the circumstances of its creation were often a lot more painful than the average person experiences. Such negative self phenomena can be very intractable since the negative self is protective just as much as the positive one.

In its creation, the self wraps itself around the senses, stifling and distorting their ability to see clearly (vidya). The common state is a state of non-seeing (avidya). This not only protects us, but also cuts us off from experience. We are no longer seeing things as they are, but are viewing selectively and even distorting our perception according to the need to maintain our identity. The "frame of reference" is the resulting channel of perception, narrowed to fit the personal perspective. This represents part of the self-material. It is a partial view, excluding anything that might threaten the self-concept and over-emphasising elements that support it.

Just as the self-image can be distorted in negative as well as positive ways, someone who has experienced a lot of early suffering may also come to view the world in negative ways. Habit patterns of perceiving threat, developed perhaps early in life, support a particular constellation of self-structures, and this in turn creates the likelihood of ongoing negative perceptual distortion. The person sees what they expect to see and expects the world to be hostile.

In the Sutra on The Ant Hill, (Majjhima Nikaya 23) the image of a tortoise is used to represent the skandhas, the process by which the self is maintained. This image captures beautifully the nature of the self. Like a hard shell, it protects us, especially if we retreat right inside it. On the other hand, the tortoise's shell is rigid and restricts its movements. It slows the creature down and prevents it doing very much other than lumbering around a rather limited area.

Buddhism invites us to throw off the shell that threatens to slow us down and restrict us. It invites us to let go of rigid thinking and perception and become more flexible. At the same time, we are challenged to step out of our habitual identity and face that existential reality that we have been avoiding for so long. We can live more lightly, but we also live more nakedly. A tortoise without its shell might be a lighter creature but it might also feel very vulnerable. For this reason the process of letting go may need to be gradual.

The teaching of the Four Noble Truths is a description of the enlightened way of living. It is the path that we follow if we live in good faith with our surroundings. The second stage of this path, samudaya, is a choice point. If at this point, when feeling reactions arise, we distract ourselves by falling into sensory pleasure, self-building, or the final stage of destructiveness, we miss an opportunity. If instead we can face the reality of dukkha, its nobility, we release ourselves and put ourselves on the spiritual path.

So what difference does this view of self make to the practice of therapy? How might a Buddhist therapist respond differently to a client?

The practice implications of the non-self position are complex. As with any therapy, the underlying paradigm colours a multitude of different responses to individual situations. If one is to generalise though, one important difference can be found in the emphasis placed by a Buddhist approach on encounter. A therapy based on non-self principles is a therapy of encounter with the other.

If self is the prison, release comes not through an endless delving into delusion, but rather through the investigation and experiencing of that which is not self. We can say that Buddhist approaches to therapy are other-centred. This might mean exploring the world that the client inhabits in a more questioning way. What is initially presented is generally within the client's frame of reference, and is part of the self-story.

Perception is selective and coloured in order to reinforce the self. Getting beyond this frame becomes a route to deeper encounter with the other. The client may be invited to explore the perspectives of significant others in the story. How was it for mother, for father, for the friend? Is it possible to imaginatively step into their shoes? Can one then look more deeply and see that even here, self-patterns have crept in? Unlike most Western approaches where the client is asked "How did you feel about…?" here the Buddhist therapist is interested in "What do you see?" "What might others see?", and "Can you see it more clearly?"

Encounter with life becomes a route to liberation. Whether it is in encouraging focused awareness in everyday tasks, accurate observation of the physical world, giving feeling attention to body sensation or developing empathic understanding of others with whom one works or lives, direct experience can provide a route to reducing self-preoccupation. A Buddhist therapist may help the client to engage in any of these.

At the same time, introspective enquiry is not completely abandoned. Since thought patterns and habitual views can be understood and recognised for what they are, as therapy progresses, these are explored. What is then discovered is that even these can be released into the realm of that which is other. "This is not me, I am not my thoughts" becomes a spontaneously arising understanding as a person comes to recognise both the fluidity of mental process and its uncontrollable nature.

So in this approach to therapy, the client comes to gradually let go of the rigidities of personality that have been thought of as self and moves towards the state of singularity or aloneness which the Buddha described as ekegata. This state, freed up from the limits of identity, allows for a fuller kind of living. This fluidity of process and engagement with new experiences as they arise is not so different from the ideal states described by some Western theorists, for example Carl Rogers. However, the methods of working that take the client away from self-preoccupation differ both in their focus and in the subliminal messages they convey. An underpinning understanding of the real nature of self and its negative effect allows the therapist and client to work more directly towards a freer, more engaged way of being. Other therapies may eventually sometime reach a point of similar encounter, largely through the congruence of the therapist and the real relationship that arises between therapist and client as two different people. On the other hand, this will inevitably be hindered by repeated reversion to self as the client is constantly reminded to dwell on his own feelings and storyline. Buddhist therapy offers a route to freedom and a route out of the shell that self attachment creates.